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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038736">Looking for You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IetjeSiobhan/pseuds/IetjeSiobhan'>IetjeSiobhan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SK8 the Infinity (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Kyan Reki Has ADHD, M/M, Reki just wants to know who his soulmate is, Soulmate-Identifying Marks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:09:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,411</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038736</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IetjeSiobhan/pseuds/IetjeSiobhan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It is there, looking, for all intents and purposes, as if it’s been there forever: a snowboard, beautiful and delicate and in the prettiest shade of pastel blue.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>388</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Looking for You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was inspired by soulmate AU discussions in the Sk8 discord server and I regret absolutely nothing. :D</p><p>Also, this gave me an excuse to re-watch the first two episodes, so all the better, really :D</p><p>This was not beta-read, so I ask you to excuse any small mistakes you may find.</p><p>Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not financially profit from this work. The characters do not belong to me, I merely borrowed them.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Reki first gets his soulmate mark, he is confused.</p><p>He’s freshly sixteen years old; he stayed up for this, watching the hours tick down, waiting, waiting, <em>waiting</em> for his soulmate tattoo, being overly excited—wondering if maybe it’s someone from his school, or, even better, someone from S, someone he <em>knows</em>.</p><p>He’s aware that most people meet their soulmates later in life, but his aunt met hers <em>on her sixteenth birthday</em>, so he’s kind of been dreaming of running into the same situation.</p><p>So he watches, and then, an hour after midnight—these marks are irregular, in the time of their appearance; they will show up on your sixteenth birthday, but when <em>exactly</em> is anyone’s guess, and nobody really knows why—his mark appears: a delicate light blue snow board, right there on the thin skin of his elbow.</p><p>It appears with a tingling beneath his skin, and a weird, heavy feeling in his bones; he has to close his eyes and breathe through it, for a second, before he can look at it again.</p><p>But it is there, looking, for all intents and purposes, as if it’s been there forever: a snowboard, beautiful and delicate and in the prettiest shade of pastel blue, and Reki looks at it and is <em>confused</em>.</p><p>Because he doesn’t exactly live in a region known for snow—has, in fact, never met even <em>one</em> person who snowboards regularly.</p><p>This means it’s probably nobody he knows.</p><p>The mark doesn’t <em>have</em> to mean his soulmate snowboards, even though his gut instinct is telling him that that’s <em>it</em>; whatever a soulmate mark exactly stands for is something you never really figure out before you meet the person.</p><p>They are weird pieces of magic; despite having been researched for centuries, there really isn’t a lot known about them.</p><p>Usually, your and your soulmate’s marks don’t match, but it’s been known to happen; usually, people only have one soulmate, but there are cases of people having several soulmates, or even none at all; usually, your soulmate is romantic, but sometimes, people get these finicky, white marks that indicate a platonic soulmate.</p><p>Soulmate marks are <em>weird</em>, and hard to figure out, and to this day, there is no united opinion about what they mean or how they even happen in the first place.</p><p>So his soulmate mark doesn’t tell Reki a whole lot; really, it tells him only two things: that he has a romantic soulmate (probably? Can soulmate marks change? He’s not entirely sure), and that his soulmate <em>might</em> be into snowboarding.</p><p>It’s not too much to go off on, but he’s dedicated to figure this out.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Reki is a little bit obsessed with soulmates, maybe; he’s not entirely sure why. For the majority of his life, he’s had fixations come and go, and then sometimes things stuck around for a longer while, but the only thing he’s really been consistently obsessed with is skateboarding, and building skateboards, and everything surrounding them, really.</p><p>Romance was never something he thought all too much about; in the grand scheme of things, skateboarding seemed more important, and he didn’t really get his classmates’ enthusiasm for the topic of soulmates. He always thought it’d be cool to meet his soulmate early on, but mostly because then he didn’t have to waste time thinking about it anymore, and also maybe they’d turn out to be a skateboarding fanatic too, which would be pretty awesome.</p><p>And then, about a month ago, he woke up in a cold sweat, and something in his mind went <em>soulmates</em>.</p><p>And it doesn’t really make <em>sense</em>; there is nothing that prefaced it, nothing explaining it, but suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about them, this person out there who’s perfect for him.</p><p>And now, looking at the small, delicate snowboard on his elbow, he just wants to <em>know</em>.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Reki starts asking around school and S if anyone knows anyone who’s into snowboarding, but, much like he suspected, nobody does; people promise to keep an eye out for him—wanting to find your soulmate is something most people can relate to—but weeks go by, and then months, and nobody hears anything of value.</p><p>His mother tells him not to fret; after all, most people meet their soulmates later in life, and there is nothing explicitly saying that his soulmate <em>is</em> into snowboarding—they could just like collecting snow-related figurines, or maybe it’s a play on their name, or something, <em>anything</em>, really—but Reki has this gut feeling; something tells him that it <em>has</em> to be snowboarding, and so he keeps up his line of inquiry.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Over a year goes by without any clues, without any people dressed in pastel blue showing up shouting about how much they love snowboarding, and Reki starts to accept that maybe, it’s not time yet, and goes back to focusing on skateboarding and S and skateboarding and S <em>only</em>.</p><p>But there is this itching beneath his skin, this tingling at the back of his head, something saying his soulmate is <em>out there</em> and <em>waiting for him</em> and that Reki needs to <em>get to them</em>—that they need him, in some way, that he’s not meant to be parted from them, not any longer.</p><p>He tries to ignore it as best he can, but it won’t go away, and at night, he stays up late, sketching vague shadowy figures on snowboards, and then, after a while, for no reason in particular he can discern, snowboards standing abandoned in a shed, vague figures sending yearning looks from afar.</p><p>Sometimes, he wakes up from a dream and there is a shapeful mist, and it almost feels like there is an image in his head, <em>someone</em>, a shape he can nearly grasp—but then the mist disperses, and he is left with nothing but the uncomfortable itching beneath his skin, beneath his scalp, and so he goes back to skateboarding, skateboarding, skateboarding, until he can almost forget that something feels <em>wrong</em>.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>He’s sitting in class, <em>tired</em>, when something pings at the back of his head, telling him that he <em>has</em> to look up; he tries to ignore it, but his stomach is in knots, and the pencil falls out of his hand because he’s trying to keep it unclenched so hard—something in him is <em>screaming</em> at him at top volume, although he’s not entirely sure what about, and then their teacher says something about a new student.</p><p>Reki isn’t entirely sure; he’s only half-listening. The majority of him is trying not to look up and stare intensely, the way his mind wants him to, but it is a losing fight; he <em>does</em> look up, and then everything in Reki is on <em>fire</em>.</p><p>The person standing in the room—Langa—is absurdly attractive, with gorgeous blue eyes and silky-looking blue hair and cheekbones that look like they were carved by the Gods, and he is apparently not very fond of properly introducing himself, and everything in Reki is screaming at him to stand up and get closer and <em>close the gap</em>—</p><p>He looks down. Has to rip his eyes away and take a few breaths.</p><p>He isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, but he <em>really</em> needs to calm down.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>He can’t stop talking about Langa, that afternoon; he tries to sound disinterested, as if he were only talking about him because he thinks Langa is weird, with the way he held himself and how little he said; but Reki thinks Langa is everything <em>but</em>.</p><p>Or maybe he is weird, but in exactly the <em>right</em> way; it’s hard to put into words, but there is something about Langa, and Reki just wants to—he’s not sure what, actually, but he can’t stop <em>thinking</em> about him.</p><p>Langa, and his smooth voice, and his beautiful eyes and soft-looking hair, and Reki isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, but Langa—<em>Langa</em>.</p><p>It feels like he was meant to meet Langa, in some weird way; like he was meant to get close to him, have their lives intertwine, and he just wants Langa to be close, and it’s absurd; he doesn’t even <em>know</em> Langa, not really. He can’t help that he <em>wants</em> to, but he <em>doesn’t</em>, not yet, and he needs to <em>calm down</em>.</p><p>Oka doesn’t seem perturbed by Reki’s chatter about Langa. He’s used to Reki’s brain latching onto things, and Reki thinking thinking <em>thinking</em> about them for a while, until his attention gets diverted and he latches onto the next topic; Reki’s thought patterns are a myriad of topic jumps and little fixations, of things that Stick and things that do anything but; sometimes he can’t even keep up with them himself, and on other days, they latch onto a thing, just for a little while, and sometimes for a long while; sometimes the latch turns into a hyperfixation, and sometimes it doesn’t.</p><p>Oka has gotten good at giving Reki as much space to talk and think as he needs, and it’s nice. Reki isn’t shy with his thoughts around him anymore, not usually.</p><p>But this time—this time. It feels weird, the way his body knew there was something about Langa before Reki had even laid eyes on him, and the way he cannot stop thinking about him now, his thoughts uselessly whirling around in his head like a tornado.</p><p>Reki isn’t sure what to make of it; he’s never felt like this before in his life.</p><p>And so he tries to play his fixation off as a disinterested ‘<em>huh’</em> about Langa’s weirdness, and hopes that he succeeds.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>He meets Langa, unexpectedly, later that same day; his skateboard rolls away from him, and Reki is panicking a little—what if his skateboard rolls into the street!—and then he sees a familiar blue mop of hair, and he yells out to the New Guy about stopping his skateboard before he can think about it.</p><p>And Langa does, and Reki feels an immense relief which only lasts until he’s standing right in front of Langa. Then his heart starts beating faster again, his hands go clammy, and something in him starts telling him to <em>touch touch touch</em>, almost screaming in his head.</p><p>He very much is <em>not</em> going to simply touch Langa—it would be weird, and too much, and Reki needs Langa to <em>like</em> him, with a desperation he cannot put into words.</p><p>Langa, who doesn’t even seem to remember him, and that <em>stings</em>, but Reki—Reki isn’t going to think about it. He can <em>make</em> Langa remember him. (He <em>has</em> to make Langa remember him, he thinks, desperately.)</p><p>And so he does the only thing he can think about to make Langa <em>stay</em>, to make Langa remember him: He asks him if he wants to try skateboarding.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Langa, on Reki’s skateboard, looks like a graceless baby deer; it’s incredible, and makes Reki feel absurdly fond.</p><p>He also simply looks <em>good</em>; too good, almost.</p><p>Reki isn’t sure how it’s fair for a single person to be <em>this</em> attractive when they’re failing to stand on a skateboard; there should be laws in place against this.</p><p>Reki never wants to stop seeing this sight, and so he brings up the skateboard shop he works at; of course he does.</p><p> </p><p>And the ensuing events, Langa needing a job—and Oka hiring—seem almost like <em>too much</em> luck, like an incredible stroke of fate.</p><p>Reki is watching Langa, and now he knows Langa won’t forget him; better, even: Reki can show Langa his world, can take him to S, can get him into skateboarding—Reki isn’t sure why it seems this important to have Langa there, alongside him, to see him skating, but he does know that he <em>needs</em> it, with a ferocity that is both entirely overwhelming and feels absurdly <em>right</em>.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>It’s heady, watching Langa take in S, heady, watching his eyes shine.</p><p>He looks incredible, and entirely both out of place and like he <em>belongs</em>, and Reki wants to <em>make him</em> belong; wants that Langa belongs, <em>with Reki</em>. The both of them a part of this world, side by side.</p><p>Something inside of him is still singing every time he comes close to Langa, and Reki still feels the incessant need to drape himself all over Langa, to touch, touch, <em>touch</em>—but he ignores it, as best he can.</p><p>He’s been ignoring it all day. At this rate, ignoring this need is going to become second nature for him.</p><p>His eyes and thoughts are still on Langa when the customer opens the skateboard bag, and then—</p><p>“<em>What happened to my skateboard</em>?!”</p><p>—Reki’s world falls apart, just a little bit, and he’s thrown from daydreaming about a future with Langa by his side right into panic.</p><p>Because staring back at him from the ground, where the customer has thrown it in a fit of anger, is <em>Reki’s</em> board, his project in progress, not the <em>customer’s</em>.</p><p>He has to—Oka is going to <em>kill</em> him. Dear Gods, they’re going to lose this customer.</p><p>He has to—maybe, if he’s fast, he can still get the correct board. He <em>has </em>to get the correct board. He’s saying as much while profusely apologising.</p><p>He has to—he can still make this right. He <em>can</em>. He <em>needs</em> to.</p><p>And then the customer is telling <em>him</em> to skate, to right this wrong, and Reki is furious, at himself and at the <em>situation</em>.</p><p>“Langa,” he says, “get me my tool bag,” and looks over at Langa, who is—</p><p>Sitting on the ground, with his feet on the skateboard? Is that <em>duct tape?! </em></p><p>He looks almost like he’s trying—he looks almost like a—Reki’s mind flashes to hours and hours of snowboarding videos he’s watched, after getting his soulmate mark, and the skin at his elbow where said mark sits is burning, and he himself is <em>burning</em> <em>up</em>, but that <em>can’t</em> be; not gorgeous, entirely unreadable Langa; not this God of a man sitting before him.</p><p>And he doesn’t have the <em>time</em> for this anyway, not right now, not in this situation.</p><p>“What are you doing?” he asks. He wonders vaguely if he sounds panicked. He certainly <em>feels</em> panicked.</p><p>And Langa’s explanation isn’t making it any better.</p><p>Langa can’t <em>actually</em> want to skate. He looks like he does, but he <em>can’t</em>.</p><p>Reki is losing his mind. His job is half on the line here, and Langa might <em>hurt</em> himself, and then Langa might never <em>speak</em> to him again because this all happening in the first place is <em>Reki’s</em> fault, and this feels like a horrible nightmare.</p><p>Reki is going to skate. He <em>has </em>to skate. Langa could seriously injure himself, and Reki can’t let that happen, he <em>can’t</em>—</p><p>“No. He’s going to skate.”</p><p>Reki whips around faster than he ever has in his life.</p><p>That is <em>Cherry</em> helping Langa up. Of all the times and places—</p><p>Reki half-worships Cherry. Of course he does. Cherry is a <em>phenomenal</em> skater; watching him is a religious experience. If Reki could spend the rest of his life watching Cherry skate, he would.</p><p>But right now, he doesn’t <em>care</em>. Right now, he needs to make sure Langa is <em>safe</em>.</p><p>Right now, Cherry is a hindrance.</p><p>Right now, Cherry is sadly a hindrance who knows the S rules, so all Reki can do is convince <em>Langa</em>—who, of course, isn’t listening. Reki feels like he’s going to start screaming any second now.</p><p>The intense beat of his heart has nothing to do with Langa anymore and everything with the situation they’re in, and this is <em>bad.</em> This is more than bad. This is the worst possible outcome of the night.</p><p>Reki wanted to show Langa his <em>world</em>; he wanted to get Langa excited about skateboarding; he had hoped that maybe, there could be a future for them skateboarding <em>together</em>; all of that is seemingly getting ripped from him in one fell swoop.</p><p>Langa looks good, standing on a skateboard that Reki built, but this is the exact opposite of what he wants.</p><p>He wants to <em>cry</em>.</p><p>He’s only known Langa for a day and a half; he shouldn’t feel like this.</p><p>But there is <em>something</em>—something that’s not going to <em>matter</em>, if Shadow is going to injure Langa.</p><p>He can vaguely feel security drag him away, vaguely feel himself struggle and call out to Langa, but reality is half-suspended beneath this haze of wrongness. Everything is going <em>wrong</em>.</p><p>This is—this is <em>Langa</em>. Reki isn’t entirely sure what that means, but it means <em>something</em>, and still, he can do nothing about this.</p><p>Nothing but watch Langa. Nothing but shout.</p><p>Nothing but feel helpless.</p><p>Langa looks entirely done for, too, the way he’s standing on the board, and it’s heart breaking.</p><p>And then. And then there is a shift.</p><p>And suddenly Langa’s posture changes, and there is a familiarity to the way he holds himself, to the way he moves his body.</p><p>There is a certainty in him, now.</p><p>And Reki recognizes his posture, and the way he holds himself.</p><p>His heart is beating in overtime, but not out of fear anymore.</p><p>The haze of wrongness is gone, and instead there is a tingling beneath Reki’s skin, and his elbow is burning.</p><p>He’s watching Langa, and he <em>knows </em>this posture; he recognises exactly where this newfound certainty in Langa’s eyes comes from.</p><p>He is—Langa is—</p><p>Cherry rips him out of his thoughts, offering him a ride, and Reki accepts because he needs to—as soon as Langa arrives he needs to—</p><p>“I’ve watched you two skateboarding,” Cherry says. Reki is only half-listening; his thoughts are with Langa. There are more words out of Cherry’s mouth, and usually Reki would soak them up—this is Cherry, legendary skateboarder <em>Cherry</em>, talking to him—but he’s more focused on his feelings, the thoughts in this head, and then he catches just a few words, just—</p><p>“Experience in snowboarding,” Cherry says, putting into words everything that Reki has felt and <em>known</em>, and the mark on his elbow feels hot like a brand.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks, breathless.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks, as Cherry’s motorbike comes to a screeching halt.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks, shouting out to Langa as Shadow tries to sabotage him.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks, as he’s seeing it snow in Okinawa for the first time in his life.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks as he runs up to Langa and grabs his collar.</p><p>“My soulmate,” he says, right into Langa’s face, and watches Langa’s eyes widen and sparkle.</p><p>“Yes,” he says. He sounds as breathless as Reki feels; Reki has a feeling it’s not because of his Beef with Shadow.</p><p>“You knew,” Reki says. It’s a statement, not a question. He can see it in Langa’s face.</p><p>“I—when you jumped over me, with your skateboard.” Langa is looking at him with his big, beautiful blue eyes. Reki has never wanted to kiss anyone this badly in his entire life. “I just felt it. I knew. And—” he softly pulls Reki’s hands from his collar then, and rolls his right sleeve up.</p><p>There, on the soft skin of his inner elbow, is a fiery red skateboard.</p><p>“Oh,” Reki makes, very softly. Cautiously, he reaches out, and then, very, very carefully, he touches his fingers to the mark.</p><p>He feels like he’s been electrocuted; sparks shooting through his fingers, his arm, <em>him</em>. The mark glows golden, for a second, before it settles back into red.</p><p>Langa is staring at him, an open expression on his face, full of wonder.</p><p>Reki rolls his own sleeve up. Exposes the small pastel blue snowboard.</p><p>Langa looks like he’s in <em>love</em>.</p><p>And Reki—he can’t take it anymore. Before Langa has a chance to touch his mark, he presses himself up and kisses Langa, right in front of the entirety of S participants and onlookers.</p><p>The incessant tingling beneath his skin that has been present for a long, long while now, the feeling that he’s not yet complete, settles. Reki knows he’s at <em>home</em>, here: in the arms of this boy he has practically just met.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>(He finds out, later, a <em>while</em> later, that his obsession started for a reason; that Langa did need him, despite not yet knowing it himself.)</p><p>(He finds out, later, that it’s much nicer to draw a boy snowboarding when he knows which features he’s drawing, when the boy is Langa.)</p><p>(He finds out, later, that he looks much worse than a graceless baby deer the first time he ever stands on a snowboard. Langa’s mother takes at least fifty pictures.)</p><p>(He is happy.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please look at this <a href="https://twitter.com/meteooru/status/1371277892185960448?s=20">gorgeous art</a> Fer made for this fic, because I am in LOVE!!!!</p><p> </p><p>If you enjoyed this fic, I would be absolutely overjoyed if you could leave me a comment &lt;3</p><p>You can find me on twitter if you want to; @shiwiwrites where I scream about all things anime and writing, but mostly Haikyuu and Sk8 :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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